I did the work a month ago before I left for a business trip. I started by taking it to an exhaust shop and had them fabricate new 2″ pipes from the cat all the way to the back, and slap on a turbo muffler. To save money, I opted to install the header myself a few weeks later, which eventually meant I had to drop the entire exhaust system, and drive it back to the shop to have the collector welded back to the cat. Driving with the headers disconnected from everything else, I expected it to be loud, but loud is an understatement. I felt like I was driving a machine gun. I got a thumbs up from the guy mowing the lawn, and dirty looks (I imagined) from everyone else. I’m a Leo and bask in attention, but never the bad kind. I was sweating balls until I got to the shop.

Have a lot more things I am working on, and the bucket list for the Shitzuki is getting longer. Almost done with a little suspension work. I put in heavy duty shackles, and replaced all the stock shock absorbers (one was totally shot). I just need to torque it up and tear up some pavement with my 1.3L mini motor!! And I need to sleep. Now.

There’s a lot to be done in the next few weeks, and I’ve been out of the loop in synthesizing my spiels to further cloud my perceptions of order and chaos.

Like everyone else, I always look forward to the silent moments of reflection, away from the noise of hustling through shit that needed to get done yesterday. I’m not sure if I’m subconsciously piling more onto my plate of expectations, because it significantly increases the appeal of being able to look at (lofty) goals from far away and say: I survived, or I gave it my best and I ain’t nothing less, or eff it’s not that important to my life. The goal is to come out of it the wiser man.

Have you ever ridden anything on two wheels? A bicycle? A motorcycle? When you’re on two wheels, you will go exactly where you look. If you stare at the arriving pothole, there your wheels shall cross. To execute a beautiful turn, you need to look out into the curve. When you are unsure, give it some more gas. Look at danger in the eyes. When you are unsure, give it more gas.

The Dalai Lama was asked what surprised him most, he said:

“Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money.
Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health.
And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present;
the result being that he does not live in the present or the future;
he lives as if he is never going to die,
and then dies having never really lived.”